PenDragon - the official magazine of Lyford Cay International School PenDragon Vol 2, Spring 2016 | Page 13

Riding Through Time
A History of Horses in
The Bahamas
By Eric Wiberg (1975-79)
My siblings and I, graduates of Lyford Cay International School
(LCIS) in the 1970s, grew up on Prospect Ridge hearing the
crack of start guns indicating that the horses were off at the
race track below our house. One winter, the horses broke
free and ran across our tennis court leading us to believe
that their hoofprints were from Santa’s reindeer. After the
Hobby Horse oval closed to racing, an eerie quiet settled
over the tracks, and we explored the abandoned stables as
they were gradually overgrown into the early 2000s.
For over hundreds of years, horses have been used for
racing, competition, transportation and in the tourism trade
in The Bahamas. Most likely, these animals were introduced
by accident sometime in the 1600s. Milanne Rehor, Head
of Arkwild of Abaco explains that “there are at least 13
Columbus-era Spanish ships on the reefs.” Spanish ships
of the Conquest always carried horses, so the presence
of horses on that island makes sense. There were once
13
13
hundreds of wild horses on Abaco. Their breed, known as the
Abaco Barb, was a rare strain of the Spanish Barb. However,
a rash of shootings, toxic leaks following a hurricane, loss
of habitat and other factors led to the last mare’s death in
recent months.
On the southern edge of The Bahamas there were also
numerous shipwrecks, each of which likely introduced
animals ashore, including the Santa Rosa (1599), the
French Le Count De Paix (1713) and the Infanta (1788). A
writer for Boating magazine in July 1967 observed that on
Inagua “wild cattle, pigs and horses gallop freely.” In 1942,
wild donkeys led 48 American sailors from the sunken
U-boat Potlatch to drinkable water on Inagua, saving them
after nearly a month in a lifeboat. Now, the wild donkeys
are in danger of going the way of the Abaco Barb: in March
2014 the Minister of Environment noted, “people have been
shooting them in large numbers...[a team] spent three and